ARTS, BRIEFLY; Fresh Talent For Newport Festival

By LARRY ROHTER

Published: March 23, 2011

There will be plenty of new blood and young performers on stage this summer at the Newport Jazz Festival, whose 2011 schedule was announced on Tuesday. The bassist and singer Esperanza Spalding, who last month won the Grammy for best new artist, will perform on two of the festival's three days of shows, which begin on Friday, Aug. 5, in Newport, R.I., where the festival was first held in 1954.

Besides Ms. Spalding, 26, the festival will feature the saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa, who has been voted ''a rising star'' by Downbeat magazine in recent years, in a duo with the veteran horn player Bunky Green. Also performing will be the trumpet player Ambrose Akinmusire, 28, whose career got off to a flying start in 2007, when he won the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition.

George Wein, who produced the first Newport festival and remains in charge, said bookings of what he called ''adventurous younger artists'' were part of an effort ''to recognize that jazz is an ever-evolving art form.''The festival's first night, however, will be devoted to established talents from opposite ends of the jazz spectrum. The trumpet player Wynton Marsalis, artistic director of the Jazz at Lincoln Center program, is one of the genre's best-known names and honors the music's roots in New Orleans dating back to Louis Armstrong. The pianist and singer Michael Feinstein is a specialist in the Broadway-influenced Great American Songbook.

Acknowledging the increasingly international reach of jazz, the festival will also feature up-and-coming performers from around the world. The pianist Hiromi Uehara, 31, is from Japan and has recently drawn attention for collaborations with Chick Corea and other prominent keyboard players. Avishai Cohen is an Israeli trumpet player whose appearance will feature the saxophonist Joshua Redman as a special guest, and Miguel Zenon often leads ensembles that offer jazz versions of Puerto Rican folk music.

In addition, the veteran saxophonist Charles Lloyd, a supporter since the 1960s of what has come to be called world music, will perform with the Indian percussionist Zakir Hussain, and the pianist Randy Weston, who around the same time began exploring the African origins of jazz, will play with his African Rhythms Trio.

Festival tickets will go on sale Friday.

This is a more complete version of the story than the one that appeared in print.